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POTATO TOWERS

Introduction: POTATO TOWERS

I wanted to hedge my bets just in case my mole-proof potato cage (https://www.instructables.com/id/Mole_proof_Potato_Cage/) did not defeat the moles like it should, so after a little research, off to the building supply store I went. If all goes well, I'll have more potatoes than I will know what to do with!

According to my research, towers are a great way to grow potatoes. As the plant grows, you add dirt. Roots will form on the now buried stem, and potatoes will grow from them. You can go quite a ways up doing this, which means less footage on the ground and more room for other veggies! Yum!

A side benefit to making this is that if you decide it was too much work to use again, or that you really only need one potato tower, these cylinders can also be used as composters.

Step 1: Gather Ye Supplies

I only had to purchase 1-10 foot roll of hardware mesh/cloth and seed potatoes. I figured the 1/4 inch squares were small enough to keep the moles & squirrels out and keep the potatoes in. Everything else we had lying around the garage and in the back yard.

1 - 10 foot roll hardware cloth (makes 2 towers!)

I chose the 3 foot width, which turns out to be the height when done. I am 5 foot 3, so if you are shorter, you may want the 2 foot width.

tape measure

wire cutters

weights to hold the wire down & keep it from curling back(I used hubby's boots!)

heavy canvas or leather gloves (keeps the hands from being sliced & diced by the wire!)

zip ties

newspaper

dirt

seed potatoes (mine sat around a warm kitchen for a 2-3 weeks, giving them a good chance to get

some "eyes" (sprouts) started. You need to cut the eyes and a good chunk of potato out about a day before you will be planting them so a scab can form on the cut end.

Step 2: The First Cut Is Also the Last!

Measure 5 feet on each side and mark with a permanent marker. This makes it easy to see where to cut, trust me.

'**SAFETY WARNING**Put on your gloves, as the sharp pieces where you cut the wire will slice and dice the back of your hands!

The beauty to this step is that you only make one cut to have the materials for 2 towers!

Step 3: Grow a Third Arm & Hand

This can be done by yourself (I did it!), but it sure would have been easier with a second person. Okay. Enough whining.

You need to start zipping or weaving the two short ends together to form a tube. The tube tried to curl in on itself, so this is where a third hand was handy. (No pun intended) Since I was alone and the dogs refused to help, my canvas yarn basket stepped up to the plate and saved the day.

*IMORTANT* In MY tower, the bottom will be open to the ground. That means burrowing vamaints can burrow right up into it if you don't take precautions. I used a scrap piece of plywood. Another would be to make 3 or 4 vertical cuts almost a foot high around one end, folding in and zipping closed to form a bottom. That will keep out the varmaints, yet allow friendly earthworms in. In that case, the title for the previous step would need to be changed. Again, wear gloves when making cuts!

Step 4: Location, Location, Location!

Pick the place you want to grow your potatoes. Remember, once placed and filled, you will nt be able to move them, so be very sure where you place the towers.

Place a section of paper against the side of the tower and start filling with dirt. This helps hold the dirt in when you water or when it rains. Once you have the first layer in place all around, you can start placing your seed potatoes/eyes.

Step 5: Grow, Baby, Grow!

About a month after planting I had to add more dirt. The plants sure did grow quickly! In went a second layer of newspaper to keep the dirt inside the tower. This time the paper kept falling in, so I utilized some filbert suckers that I had cut out a week prior as paper holders. Worked nicely, as you can see!

I carefully added more dirt, building up around the stems of the plants. This is where I scratched my arms up pretty bad on the zip ties! Please, heed my words AND actions!! Also, I found it easier to use a short-handled shovel and garden trowel to get the dirt in around the plants. A long handled shovel is difficult to maneuver in the tight confines of the tower.

The dirt I used to fill the towers came from a yard of dirt we had got to use around the house. As I dug this dirt to add to the towers, I also dug up worms that had made their way into the rich dirt. So I added the worms along with the dirt to the towers. Because the worms are now trapped due to the plywood, I've been adding food scraps and coffee grounds and such to the towers as well so they don't starve. Only in small quantities, as there are only a few worms, and you don't want to attract pests.

You'll be ready to harvest about a week or two after the plants have flowered and started to whither. The beauty to doing it this way, on a platform instead of zip tying the bottom closed, is that you (and a friend or two) can just lift the wire and knock it lightly to get the dirt and potatoes to come out the bottom. If you are alone, you can just pull it over on its side to get to the potatoes. Be careful! The skins are quite fragile at this moment! They will need to age, or "cure" for a few days, so carefully place them in a paper bag or cardboard box and place in the garage or on the porch; SOME place out of the sun.

If you want to use one (or both) as a composter, I'd suggest getting some tall garden stakes using two per cylinder (driven into the ground on the inside) to keep the cylinders in place. Stakes can be seen to the left in the first photo below. This will make the composters easy to move and access the compost.

My editor and I hope this has been helpful to anyone who has been thinking about trying a potato tower.

Paper Contest 2018

Pocket-Sized Contest

Science of Cooking

Tips

Questions

33 Comments

Hi , I did this without the wire mesh just used old scrap tyres from the tyre vendor plant your potato place a tyre over it and as the plant grows above the tyre place the next tyre over the first and fill with soil and so on till you have a tower of 5 or 6 tyres [whatever is manageable for you] then let the plant flower and die . when you want potato's you remove 1 tyre to retrieve the potato's desired and leave the rest till required For all year round potato's start a second tower when the first is 3 tyres high and so on

Thanks for this 'ible. I'm going to try something like this next year but with window screening rather than wire cloth. I don't have strength in my hands to use wire cutters. It'll be a sort of grow bag. I'll roll it into a tube and then bunch it up at one end, like a Tootsie Roll, and secure it using a zip tie. That will be the bottom. Then I'll roll down the top like a sock and as the plants grow just unroll the top higher and higher as soil is added. Will be fun to see if it'll work.

A website where you can buy great potato towers is: henleypotatotower.co.uk

They have a tower which stacks up. It also has holes in the side so you can put some of the stalks outside at all levels so that there is more foliage which means more potatoes can grow. It also comes with a polycarbonate lid to keep the frost off in the early weeks. It's a very good product that lasts a long time and works!

If that's not enough they also have a £500 competition for the gardener who produces the most potatoes in a tower in a year!

I, too, was wondering which kind would work better, so last year I did whites and reds, one tower for each. I got pretty much the same amount, so no answer there.

If you already have spuds that have sprouted eyes, you can cut the potato around the biggest eyes, and let them sit out overnight to scab over. Once scabbed, you can plant the eyes, thus getting more plants out of the potato. This is something that grandma did, and that I do.

Also, if you get a bag of potatoes that are still covered in dirt, then chances are good that the potatoes were NOT sprayed to retard growth. I've actually used these types with no problem. All I had to do was wait for the eyes to develop. You don't use ALL the eyes, just the biggest ones.

Something else: As I dug in my regular garden, some of the lovely fat worms that I found were transferred to the potato towers. I didn't fertilize the towers, but made sure to add some kitchen waste so the worms were fed. Their castings provide fertilizer, and they also keep the soil from compacting. You might want to try that if you build on concrete again.

I don't know that I'll be growing potatoes this year, but if I change my mind, I would love to participate in your experiment. Thank you for the invitation!

Thanks! I wish I knew the official variety name of your reds and whites. This year I will get the seed potatoes from the seed company or garden store, then I will be able to idnetify the official name of the variety. I need to reproduce good results and identify and avoid the varieties that don't respond to the tower procedure. I would like people to be able to avoid an entire growing season that had no chance for success in the first place. It would be great for you to join us. I can't find any data on experiments of this kind.

We did 3 potato towers in our garden this year (three varieties) but we used a wider mesh. This let the leaves grow out the sides and when it was time to plant tomatoes, we did that on top. Potatoes and tomatoes love to be in the same soil together. Maybe try that in one of them next year, just a thought. Happy plants make happy food.

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